Teymur Rajabov

Teymur Rajabov is an Azerbaijani chess Grandmaster. He was born on 12 March 1987 in Baku and started playing chess when he was four years old. Teymur became an International Master in 1999 at the age of 11 years and 11 months and in 2001, at the age of 14 years and 14 days, he became the youngest Grandmaster in the world at the time, and the second youngest person ever to become a GM at that time. In January 2002, with a rating of 2599 he entered FIDE’s World Top 100 rating list, the 2nd youngest to ever do so after Judit Polgar, with an initial world ranking of 93rd. He has remained on this list ever since. He became the youngest player ever to defeat long-time World Champion Garry Kasparov in 2003. That same year he tallied wins against FIDE World Champions Viswanathan Anand and Ruslan Ponomariov. In May 2006 he was appointed as the UNICEF National Goodwill Ambassador for Azerbaijan. Teymur Rajabov advocates for the cause of the universal salt iodization in the country.